Archive of Our Own

“Okay, wow,” Laura gasped, the last of the desperate tension and heat shuddering out of her skin and muscles and nerves. Clint was braced over her, his hips still pushing into her with tiny, almost helpless tremors and his head tucked into the curve of her neck. She dragged her hand up along his spine to comb her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck, smiling when he arched up into her touch. Compared to everything that had come before, to the scratches she’d left on his back and the bruises she could feel starting on her hips and thighs, the touch was nothing, not even PG-rated, but it still ranked high on Laura’s list of favorite things. It was a luxury, she thought, having that simple, non-sexual point of contact while their breathing slowed and her pulse settled. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say that, yeah, we haven’t reached the boring-sex stage yet.”

Clint laughed, a soft huff of air against her sweat-damp skin, enough to make Laura shiver even before he dragged his mouth over her collarbone and up along the tendon in her neck, a not quite kiss that lit her up like she wasn’t somewhere between the aching, screaming need he could pull out of her and the lax sprawl she always melted into once they were done.

“No,” he murmured against the pulse in her throat. “I don’t think we have.” He bit her there, gently this time, and then lifted his head enough that Laura could get her mouth on his. Now that they weren’t frantic, she took her time, letting his tongue slide into her mouth, twining hers around it, everything easy and slow, and for all that they were still naked and pressed together, Clint still buried in her and her legs holding him close, she lost herself in the kiss, his mouth against hers, lips and teeth and tongue, until they had to breathe and move before everything stiffened up.

Laura reluctantly loosened her legs where they were still wrapped around his hips, letting him go with one last nip at his bottom lip, and Clint rolled to the side to deal with the condom. Laura shivered for real as she lost the heat of his body and the over-cool air of the hotel room hit her. She groped for the sheet--they’d pretty thoroughly torn the bed apart and they hadn’t even been in the room for an hour--and dragged it up over her.

“You’d think it would have settled down by now,” Laura said, contented and lazy from the good hormone rush, the muscles in her thighs and abs aching pleasantly in the way she’d come to expect (and being honest, had actually discovered) from these meet-ups.“‘S been a year, more than…”

“Yeah, well, you know what they say about absence and the heart? Works even better for other body parts.” Clint settled himself back on his side, stretched out next to her.

“Maybe,” Laura answered, considering. It hadn’t really worked that way when she’d been so busy finishing up grad school, but so much hadn’t worked for so long in her marriage that she probably couldn’t count it as a baseline for anything. To Clint’s point, they’d really only seen each other a half-dozen times. Maybe two weeks total, if she strung it all the days together. They talked a lot, though, and she still wasn’t sure which one of them was more surprised by that. She knew he’d almost not asked her for her number before he left for the river that first morning-after, not sure whether she’d just wanted to put a check in the Sex After Break-Up column and move on. Fortunately, he’d decided to go for it and ask, and she hadn’t hesitated for even a heartbeat, a decision she had yet to regret.

“Plus, you’re apparently working out all kinds of new things to try,” Clint said, all sly and sweetly teasing. “Rehearsing things on the phone and all…”

“Oh, god, hush, you,” Laura said, and resigned herself to blushing even though the phone sex they’d been having in between actual visits had been kind of a revelation. Who knew she could do so much with just herself and a voice in her ear? "I can always find someone else to 'rehearse' with."

"Hushing," Clint said, even though she thought he knew it was an empty threat. “Just in case you hadn’t noticed, I like rehearsing with you.” Laura smiled without opening her eyes. She’d noticed. Clint’s fingers trailed up Laura's arm, careful now where he'd been (perfectly) not before. Laura thought about purring. As much as she enjoyed the sex, this was good, too. The weight of her everyday life, all the baseline stress and the loneliness faded away into the background, a little more with each breath.The moment stretched out, quiet and tranquil, and Laura was almost asleep when Clint said, "Hey, I—uh, can we talk?"

Laura's eyes snapped open; his voice was quiet and a little uncertain, and all she could think was that he was trying to figure out how to let her down easy.

“It’s nothing bad,” Clint said, and yeah, she definitely wasn’t good at hiding her feelings. He watched her out of the corner of his eye until she nodded, and then he took a long breath before saying, “I just, I dunno, it’s Vegas and all, and I thought about us… maybe getting married.”

“Married,” Laura said--echoed, really, because her brain was just blank. “To me?” Clint twitched, a tiny flicker of movement that would have been nothing on anyone else, except she’d seen him walk through stinging nettles with less of a reaction. At the very least, it was more than enough to kick-start her brain and get her started thinking, not just reacting. She sat up and dragged the sheet with her, wrapping it around her and tucking the edges in. There was an armchair next to the bed; she sat in it and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them and breathing carefully, all the languor of the previous moments fading, leaving her with only the dull physical ache from how hard they’d taken each other. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “Did I--have I been thinking the wrong thing about us?”

“No,” Clint answered. “You haven’t. I, yeah, I know we’re not really like that, but…” He shrugged. “We don’t-- It doesn’t really have to change anything. It’s just--shit happens, at work, out on ops, and it’d-- If we were married, the death benefits would go to you automatically and--”

“You want us to get married so I’d get money if you died?” Laura knew she was maybe a decibel off shrill, but she really could not wrap her brain about what he was saying. “It doesn’t have to change anything?” She shook her head. “I don’t--I really am missing something. I’m sorry--”

“Nah,” Clint sighed. “Not your fault--I’m an idiot who never actually thinks things through,”

“Clint--” Laura had no idea what she should be saying, but he interrupted her before she could get far enough to stumble over her thoughts.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to freak you out.” He came around the foot of the bed and sat on the edge near her, not touching her but not across the room either. “I--” He rubbed one hand at the base of his neck. “Can we pretend like I didn’t just say all that? I don’t want to ruin the weekend--you have no idea how much I’ve been waiting for it.”

“Me, too,” Laura whispered. It was the truth--setting aside the money to come see him was her one indulgence in the life she was trying to build. She’d say that once she knew they had plans to meet up in person, everything else dulled in comparison, but the truth was everything else was already pretty flat. She hadn’t ever told him that, but she also hadn’t ever hidden how much she enjoyed spending time with him, far beyond the sex. He’d come to stay with her twice, and once she’d settled into an actual job and found a way to put aside a little mad money, she’d flown to California to meet him outside the base where he was stationed. Twice they’d met up in the middle, and now here they were in Vegas and she’d never not had fun, never left feeling that she hadn’t gotten to know him better. Even given all that, she still had to hesitate. He saw, of course, and not because he noticed everything, but because she didn’t know how to hide things well and she didn’t want to go down the road of trying with him.

“Please,” he said, staring at where his hands rested on his knees. He was holding himself still and detached, as though he was already readying himself for things to end. The thought flew through Laura’s mind that she’d never felt like she needed to be on her guard with him; for all the oddness, right now didn’t feel like time to start.

“Okay,” she said, and he jerked his head up in surprise. She smiled a little helplessly and shrugged. “I don’t know if we really can pretend like you want, but I’m good with trying.”

“Okay,” he said, exhaling on a long sigh. “Okay, thanks, sorry--”

“No,” Laura said. “Don’t--it’s not--” It was her turn to take a deep breath. “It’s fine.”

Clint nodded even though they both knew ‘fine’ was a pretty big stretch. “We could get some dinner, see a show--”

“Food would be good,” Laura said. She managed not to wince at how stiff she sounded, but it was a near thing. “We can see about the other stuff after?”

“Yeah, sure.” Clint eased off the bed and gestured toward the bathroom. “You, um, want first dibs--?”

“Thank you,” Laura said. She managed to grab her overnight bag and keep the sheet wrapped around her at the same time, and, once the bathroom door closed behind her, firmly did not think about their traditional pre-dinner (and post-crashing-into-each-other) making out in the shower. Instead, she gathered her hair back into a ponytail and clipped it up so she could let the hot water ease where shoulders had tightened with the sudden unexpected tension without having to spend another hour having to deal with a blow dryer.

It helped a little, at least enough that she didn’t feel like she was having flashbacks to the last couple of months of her marriage.

He didn’t look like he’d moved much when she came out again, and his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes when he slipped past her and into the bathroom. Laura couldn’t exactly blame him: her own expression couldn’t have been all that welcoming.

“Ok,” Laura said to herself as she dug out her make-up bag. “Either deal or don’t but quit with the wishy-washy shit.”

She’d become a big fan of mirrored pep talks during grad school when it had become clear that she was the only person she could count on. Doing her minimalist thing with mascara and lipstick gave her an opportunity to really give herself a thorough talking-to. She’d spent the last few years dismantling the Good Girl she’d felt compelled to be growing up and even if she still had those moments where it felt terrifying to admit she’d made a mistake, Clint certainly wasn’t one. They could talk, she knew that, she had faith in that. They could figure it out. She added in a little deep breathing, and by the time Clint came out of the bathroom, she’d decided she was going to deal. Period.

Clint was trying, too, and if his tone was maybe too casual as he went through the restaurant options she certainly wasn’t going to call him out on it. They settled on the buffet, mostly because it was just the easiest option. There might also have been a certain level of satisfaction that Laura got when she managed to get him someplace where she knew he was eating something better than MREs, but that wasn’t anything new.

The elevator was crowded on the way down, and it kept stopping every few floors, more people crowding in, the siren call of the casino so loud and strong that most of the new ones didn’t really look where they were stepping, just piled on. Laura was edged back further and further into the corner with Clint. It had the very high potential to be uncomfortable--or at least awkward--but he let her move close without any sign that she’d just freaked out on him, and she reminded herself she was going to deal. By the time they reached the lobby, she’d been pressed into the curve of his arm long enough that any recently invoked personal space bubbles had been breached, and they made their way through the casino to the buffet with at least a little of their normal level of comfort with each other.

Doing what Clint asked and pretending like nothing had happened was a pretty tall order, but they’d missed a couple of weeks of phone calls while he’d been out doing something he couldn’t tell her about, so they eased back into actual conversation with all the minor details of daily life. That--just the sheer normality of it all--was a relief, even more of one than Laura had expected, and she laughed a little bit more than necessary at Clint’s deadpan delivery of all the random (unclassified) craziness that was life in the military. He smiled back at her like he knew what was going on, and another little bit of awkwardness faded.

He even rolled his eyes when she ended up with a third chocolate mousse--as if she’d let something like that stop her, which she knew perfectly well that he knew, too. It did give her pause, though, to think how easily they’d fallen into enjoying each others company all those months ago, and how, whatever else was going on, he’d become someone she could call a friend. At the very least, she wouldn’t leave a friend hanging, so she really wasn’t surprised at all to hear herself say, “Please tell me what’s going on with you.” She reached across the table and laid her hand over his, and when he didn’t pull away, added, “For real, not the funny stories.”

“Babe,” Clint sighed, “you know I can’t--”

“I know you can’t talk details, but that’s not what I’m asking about.”

Clint glanced around the room, but no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to them. Given some of the minimal dresses on several of the female patrons, that was probably not likely to end soon. Laura hadn’t actually thought anything out, but the restaurant was probably a better place to have this conversation than the room would have been. It was neutral territory, for starters; and even though it was crowded, a hundred conversations layered over background music and the clatter of silver on china made a quiet conversation almost private. It was, Laura thought, at the very least, anonymous, in that way that cities had and small towns didn’t.

They sat quietly, but Clint didn’t pull away, or tell her to forget it, so Laura sat with him while he worked through what he wanted to say. Finally, he answered, “Like I said, shit happens, and this last month… It’s been pretty fucked up, even for what I do. I--I don’t know, I guess I wanted there to be somebody for them to tell if it was me that got caught up in it. Somebody who’d actually give a damn.”

He had a brother, Laura knew, but since that was another thing he didn’t talk about, Laura was fairly certain he didn’t fall under the category of someone who would care.

“Yeah, so,” Clint said, sitting up straighter. Laura could practically see him shrugging on his usual attitude of control. “Like I said, it’s been a hell of a month and lucky you caught the tail end of it all--”

“You can have that,” Laura interrupted. “Put me on all the forms--you don’t have to marry me for that.”

“Yeah, see,” Clint said, still holding her hand, “I kinda saw it as I’d get to marry you.”

“You can’t mean that,” Laura said, the words shocked out of her before she even knew they were coming. She knew it was the wrong thing to say, again, even before Clint let go of her hand and started looking around for the waiter. “You-- We haven’t been-- ”

“Sure, I can mean it,” Clint interrupted, signalling for the bill. Laura had been with him while he’d talked his way out of at least two barroom brawls in the making, and he’d never lost his relaxed, easy tone; for the first time in the year-plus that they’d known each other, his voice had an edge to it. He looked back to her and said, “You don’t have to agree with it, or feel the same way, but I sure as hell can mean it.”

Clint stood up, pulling out cash to leave in the leather folder that the bill came in. “I’m not him,” he said, his voice even again, and Laura almost couldn’t breathe with how easily he’d seen through her reaction--more easily than she had herself. “I’m not.”

She’d gotten past a lot of the crap that she’d been dragging along since the divorce, had let go of a lot of the anger she’d almost been drowning in, but hearing that just drove home how deep the gouges had been and how easy it was to get stuck in them again.

“I know you’re not,” Laura answered, but her voice was stuck somewhere in her chest and she wasn’t sure he heard her until she realized he was standing behind his chair, waiting to see if she wanted to come with him. “I know,” she repeated as she went to join him. “I swear I do.”

Deliberately, she laid a hand on his arm, because one thing she did know was that he trusted actions a lot more than words. He looked at her for a long moment--she couldn’t read anything in his eyes, not past all the walls that she couldn’t blame him for retreating behind--but he relaxed enough that she slipped her arm through his and let him lead them out of the restaurant.

*

In the middle of all the casinos and bars and shops with purses that cost more than Laura’s truck, the hotel had elaborate gardens and a conservatory full of rare and particular flowers, everything themed and landscaped down to the last leaf and petal. They were about as far away from the soybean and corn fields that made up her life as you could get, but they were still beautiful, living spaces in the middle of the neon and asphalt of the city, so Laura didn’t suppose it was much of a surprise that she found herself lingering.

“I’m sorry,” Laura said, gesturing to where she’d gotten distracted by how they were filtering the fountain water to use in the irrigation system. “We don’t have to stay--”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Clint said. “‘S nice in here.”

“We could go to the casino,” Laura suggested. She wasn’t terribly excited about that--and had mentioned it when they’d decided on Las Vegas in general and the hotel in particular--but it was something to do.

“No, really,” Clint answered. “I’m good hanging here--my unit’ll probably disown me, but I’m not really feeling the cards tonight. We can just… I don’t know, see what else is around.”

“Sure,” Laura said. He let her take his arm again, and encouraged by the contact, she felt like she could add a little bit of a joke. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m a country girl. We make our own fun.”

Clint smiled at that, a real one that reached his eyes, no matter that it started off small. “Yeah, carnie, here, remember? Got paid for making my own fun.” They stepped out of the heavy glass doors and relative quiet of the conservatory and the hum and all the commotion and energy of the hotel washed over them. “Well, for certain definitions of paid. And fun.”

Laura had no idea where things were in relation to each other--the hotel was huge and sprawling, one marble and gilded hall after another--but Clint seemed to have a map in his head, so she didn’t think they were walking in circles. The casino floor beckoned seductively--something exciting happened at a roulette wheel just as they passed--but neither of them did more than glance around as they wandered in search of a something to do that looked fun. None of shows worked, timing-wise; Laura would have waited for the late circus performance, but Clint moved on without hesitating. He didn’t usually talk much about growing up, but he’d shared enough that Laura could piece together the rest. She knew perfectly well that some of the scars she’d traced with her hands and mouth were far older than could be explained by anything Special Forces-related. If he didn’t want to deal with ghosts, she certainly wasn’t going to object.

They made what turned out to be a full loop through the public areas of the hotel, and then ended up outside, in a sheltered courtyard. There were pockets of laughter and activity, but on the far side of the elaborately themed pool, there was a mostly deserted section.

“Stay for awhile?” Clint asked, and Laura happily dispensed with her heeled sandals and settled herself on the top of the blue-and-gold tiled steps leading down into the pool, the water cool against her feet and calves. The underwater lights were bright enough to throw flickering reflections and shadows, but low enough that everything felt intimate and private. Clint dragged a lounge chair closer and sat on the edge. If the night hadn’t been one long roller-coaster of emotions, Laura would have leaned back against his legs, but even with that bit of awkwardness, it was still calm and almost peaceful.

Laura leaned back on her elbows and let her legs float. A waiter came around and was nice enough not to care when neither of them wanted anything alcoholic and expensive, just smiled and brought them a pitcher of water flavored with fruit and edible flower petals frozen into the ice. Clint tipped the guy, but eyed his glass skeptically enough that Laura had to turn away and hide her smile.

“Oh, this is so not my normal world,” Laura said as soon as the waiter was out of earshot.

“Yeah, ditto,” Clint snorted.

“It’s nice, though,” Laura murmured, closing her eyes and letting the night sink into her. “Thank you for arranging it.”

“It’s my squad leader’s wife you should be thanking,” Clint said. “She’s the one who told me where to go and all.”

“But you still took the time to make it all happen,” Laura said. “By the time I’m done with work, I’m so tired I can barely think.”

“Yeah, I’ve been getting that impression,” Clint said. He hesitated for long enough that Laura wasn’t surprised when he followed it up with, “You’re still set on that, then? Working for The Man?"

“You’ve been dying to ask that for months, haven’t you?” Laura was actually a little surprised he’d let it go as long as he had, especially once she’d admitted how draining it was, working for one of the biggest of the agricultural corporations.

Clint hummed, wordless and noncommittal, and let the silence draw out.

“It is what it is,” Laura finally said. She'd been born into the world of the family farm, with land stretching back generations before her, but it didn’t exist any more, and her family had dealt with that (or not, as the case might be) years before. If she wanted to make real money (and she had to if she was going to pay off the loans it had taken to get through school), Big Ag was what she had to deal with, even if it had torn her family apart.

“I know, you’ve got a plan.” Clint leaned a little more forward in his chair and studied her with that focus she’d noticed right from the start. She twisted around so she could meet his eyes as evenly as she could, but when he said, “I’m not saying you don’t have good reasons for it, but I’m not sure it’s worth what it’s doing to you,” she had to look away before the sudden hot rush of tears spilled over. It was stupid--stupid--to cry just because someone was actually seeing her, but that was apparently where she was. “Hey, hey, I’m sorry--” He reached out across the space between them and she let him take her hand. If she was hanging on a little too tightly, he didn’t seem to notice. “Jesus, I’m screwing this whole weekend up.”

Laura shook her head, but the tears still threatened, and she didn’t resist when he tugged her up next to him. “You’re not, you’re not,” she managed to gasp out, but that was all she could say. She let him settle them on the lounge chair so that she was tucked up along his side and his heart was beating steady and sure under her ear, and after a little bit, the tears receded unshed (for the most part) and she could breathe again.

“I respect the hell out of you for taking it all on, but I have to ask if it’s really going okay,” Clint said in that straightforward, easy way he had, the one that said he was just relaying what he’d seen.

“It’s… getting there,” Laura finally answered, which was as much of the truth as she could manage. Her plans hadn’t taken into account the financial hit she’d taken from the divorce and having to start over, but if she could hold on, she’d be clear of the worst loans in another year and then she could get on with her life. She took a deep breath, and then another, settling and centering herself in his kindness. “It’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Clint said. “If you say so. Just, y’know, tell me you’re giving yourself a break every now and then.”

“That’s where you come into play, soldier,” Laura said, more lightly than she would have believed she was capable of. It probably had to do with how true it was.

“Ah, babe, you need something--somebody--more than me and all my shit.”

Laura was shaking her head before he finished. "No, I don't," she said. "I could use more of you--oh." She sat up and stared at him, actually hearing what she'd said, and, more than that, feeling the truth of it, of all the calls and texts and emails, the bits of daily life, the good things and the frustrations, everything that had shaped the days and weeks and months since they’d met. Laura wasn’t even counting the sex and how very much she trusted him there, with things she was only just beginning to figure out herself.

"Oh, I am so stupid sometimes," she breathed, reaching out to smooth her thumb over the small tense lines at the corner of his eye, so different than the laugh lines she loved to coax out of hiding. “Tell me I wasn’t too slow and haven’t screwed everything up.”

He was very still against her, back behind his walls, but he didn’t move away from her touch, which Laura took as a good sign. “I’m not trying to be a jerk,” he finally said, his voice low and soft, “but I think you need to be really clear about what you’re saying. I need you to be really clear.”

“I can do that,” Laura said. She let her thumb trace his cheekbone, pleased with how steady she felt. “I’m asking if your proposal still stands.”

“Babe,” Clint sighed after a long few seconds where everything was quiet and still. “I said the word ‘married’ and you were across the room like a shot.”

“I was,” Laura admitted. “It was a surprise, and I didn’t react well, but that didn’t really have all that much to do with you--”

“Like how I couldn’t possibly mean that I wanted something more with you?” His voice had that edge to it again, and, not that Laura needed any further proof, but yeah, unintentional or not, that had been a really hurtful thing to say.

“Same underlying, knee-jerk, stupid reaction,” Laura said. “My thing. Mine. Not you.” She sat up straighter and folded her hands in her lap to keep from touching him because she didn’t want any distractions. “I know this doesn’t really make up for all that, but I--” She shrugged. “I meant what I just said--you’re enough, I just need more of you.” She took a deep breath and let it trickle back out. “If you meant it, if you still mean it, that’s what you were offering.”

“I meant it, but…” Clint reached over and took her hand in his. “I don’t know that it was a good idea, like, I have no idea how I thought it’d work, practically speaking--we live halfway across the country from each other--”

“Well,” Laura said, her project-planning brain kicking on, and yes, she was aware that it was her go-to method of keeping her attention off things that she didn’t want to think about, but in this case, she was prepared to argue (with herself) that some kind of planning was going to need to happen, “you get deployed an awful lot, and you train all the rest of the time, so I’d have to see what I could find near you, which… could be interesting. Definitely something not-soybean related--”

“Laura--”

“I mean, it wouldn’t happen overnight, but I have a couple contacts I can talk to--oh, the wine industry--that would be something different--”

“Babe, what are you doing?”

“Figuring out how it could work,” Laura said. She shrugged. “If I want to sound like I’m an adult, I say I’m brainstorming, but really, it’s just building castles in the air, like my mom always yelled at me for. Sorry. I’ll let it go.”

She tugged her hand free and twisted around like she was trying to find her glass of water, and not at all like she needed not to see the look on his face that said it was too late. She even managed to take a few sips and swallow them without choking. When she turned back around, Clint was still watching her and it took a few seconds for her to meet his eyes.

“It’s fine,” Laura said. “You’re probably right--who knows how it would work out.”

“I should have thought it through before I said anything,” Clint said. “That’s what they say you should do, except I’m shit at doing what people say I should.”

“I am working on being more like that,” Laura said, “because, let me tell you, ‘they--’” She made sarcastic finger quotes-- “don’t know what the hell they’re talking about half the time, and from personal experience, especially not in this case.” She pushed her hair back off her face and wished for a drink, even though she’d had front row seats to how easily that could mess up a whole bunch of lives. “I mean, seriously, what do they know? Do you know how many people told me how lucky I was, how many times I heard what a great couple I was a part of? I mean, from the time I was fifteen, right up to the week before I walked out on the ass. My family, his family, our friends, our minister--everybody just knew how perfect that marriage was going to be. And you know, we didn’t rush into anything--we waited a whole year after high school.” She practically rolled her eyes at how proud she’d been every time she’d told someone that. It was painful to look back and see how stupid she’d been, how naive. “I thought about how married life was going to be and planned it all out, and you know what?” The words were falling out of her mouth now, and it wasn’t exactly fair to Clint--he hadn’t really signed up for the emotional fall-out from how drearily her marriage had turned out--but she just couldn’t see any way she could stop them. “None of that mattered. Not one bit. I knew the day I put the damn gown on that it wasn’t right, but I told myself it was fine, it was a big decision, it was natural to feel some jitters and doubts. I told myself that so many times that I should have just cross-stitched it and hung it over the damn bed so I could see it every morning and every night, twist it into my brain a little neater.”

Laura rubbed the heel of her hand across her eyes--she wasn’t really crying, because she was done with wasting tears over that, but she could feel a headache coming on. “So, yeah, you said ‘married’ and all that jumped me, and then you said you wanted it, and the memory of every lie and insult and fight just tried to drown me, but when I think about you, all I can think is I want more of you, okay? So whatever happens, all this drama isn’t about you, no matter what the rest of the world wants to set itself up to say.”

She was breathless by the time she could make herself stop, breathless and almost shaking, but it felt good to have gotten all that out. She half-expected Clint to try to defuse the whole situation with a joke, or a smirk or something (and she knew herself well enough to know she’d probably play along with it, even if would be too disappointing for words), but only said, “Okay, not about me.” His eyes were serious, and maybe a little sad. “Not saying it’s that easy to get shit like that through my thick head, but yeah, I’m hearing you. And for the record, when I think about you, more is pretty much all I want, too.”

“That’s really good to hear,” Laura managed to whisper. Clint made a motion like he was reaching for her hand, but stopped before moving more than an inch, and Laura remembered that she’d pulled away from him, so she reached out and met him halfway. The final group had left the pool at some point during her meltdown, so the courtyard was quiet and the reflections from the underwater lights had settled into patterns driven only by the water moving through the filters.

“So,” Clint said, his voice pitched low. “If wanted to know more about building castles in the air, what more would you say?”

Laura heard the question underlying the words, the one that wanted to know where they stood, and it lightened something in her, enough that her voice was even and steady again. “I’d say I don’t know the first thing about the military, not really.”

“And I don’t know anything about farming,” Clint said.

“I think that’s okay,” Laura said, feeling her way through what she wanted to say. “I think it’s good that we know that we don’t know, because I think most people don’t even know that much. They don’t even know they need to be asking questions.”

“Yeah,” Clint said. “I’m with you. Ask away.”

“You’re probably going to regret saying that,” Laura warned him, because her brain was whirling furiously, but he just laughed.

“I’ve got really good eyes,” he told her. “I can see a long way and whatever it takes to get there is fine by me.” He dropped a kiss on the back of her hand, so she started off with the easy stuff, like where they could live and how her generally having to be out in the fields or locked up in a lab was going to work with his training and deployments. (The first one got a shrug and a ‘on-base or off, your call’ for an answer; the second one got a ‘I’ll see you more than I see you now, so whatever,’ neither of which Laura couldn’t really argue with.)

“And, hey, you need to talk, too,” she pointed out, and he made a face, but he fired off a few questions of his own, mostly all centered on whether she really wanted to walk away from her life. (The short answer was: maybe, leaning to hell yeah. The long answer went on for a while. Clint listened patiently.)

Laura thought they could have stayed there all night, but a polite guy in a suit (Security, Clint muttered) interrupted them an hour into their Q&A session and shepherded them out of the pool area. “We don’t have lifeguards overnight,” he was saying. “May I help you find anything else here at the hotel?”

Clint started to say no, but then hesitated, slanting a glance at Laura, asking without words. There were a thousand reasons why it wasn’t a good idea, but all she wanted to say, all she could say was, “So long as you keep talking to me.”

Clint smiled at her--not a grin or a smirk or a tease, just a slow, easy smile that was utterly impossible to resist--and turned back to their unlikely guide to ask, “Yeah, where’s the least tacky place we can get married?”

It was Las Vegas, so they had their choice even if it was almost midnight, and even though they chose the chapel at the complete other end of the hotel and had to wait for two couples to finish up before it was their turn, Laura was sure they were still smiling those same smiles when the receptionist snapped their picture as the Justice of the Peace pronounced them husband and wife.

It was not a bad way to start a marriage, Laura thought as she leaned up to kiss Clint. Not at all.